Synopses & Reviews
The basis for the blockbuster motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane is a gripping and atmospheric psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems. The New York Times calls Shutter Island, “Startlingly original.” The Washington Post raves, “Brilliantly conceived and executed.” A masterwork of suspense and surprise from the author of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, Shutter Island carries the reader into a nightmare world of madness, mind control, and CIA Cold War paranoia and is unlike anything youve ever read before.
Review
"[A]n eerie, startlingly original story....[Lehane writes] with a crisp clarity that makes the layout of Shutter Island instantly cinematic....[A] deft, suspenseful thriller that unfolds with increasing urgency until it delivers a visceral shock in its final moments. When it comes to keeping readers exactly where he wants them, Mr. Lehane offers a bravura demonstration of how it's done." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"All of the characters...are wonderful creations, but no more wonderful than the spot-on dialogue with which Lehane brings them to life and the marvelous prose that enriches the narrative....There is no mystery...about how good this book is; like Mystic River, it's a tour de force." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Lehane's lollapalooza of a corkscrew thriller....After an extraordinarily humane series of neo-noirs, Lehane has produced a brilliantly far-fetched page-turner that's sure to be the most talked-about thriller of the year." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The ride this novel provides is as good as entertainment gets." The Miami Herald
Review
"To finish the novel and it would be criminal even to hint at its ending is to be disoriented, perhaps angered, and finally to reflect on the ability of a master storyteller to play havoc with our minds. If we could bring back Edgar Allan Poe and equip him with today's postmodern bag of tricks, he might give us a tale as unexpected and unsettling as Shutter Island." Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
Review
"Shutter Island is a tremendously satisfying thriller. The suspense is molasses-thick with a plot that will keep you guessing. Lehane doesn't miss a trick. It's a great, fun read, and then there's that ending. You're sure to talk about this one over lunch." Tom Walker, The Denver Post
Review
"[Dennis Lehane is one of] the very best young mystery writers." Esquire
Review
"It has the headlong suspense and whopper of a story you would expect in any well-made thriller." Joseph Barbato, USA Today
Synopsis
The basis for the blockbuster motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane is a gripping and atmospheric psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems. The New York Times calls Shutter Island, "Startlingly original." The Washington Post raves, "Brilliantly conceived and executed." A masterwork of suspense and surprise from the author of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, Shutter Island carries the reader into a nightmare world of madness, mind control, and CIA Cold War paranoia and is unlike anything you've ever read before.
Synopsis
New York Times best-selling author Dennis Lehane returns with a haunting psychological thriller set in 1954 in which two U.S. Marshals hunting for an escaped mental patient unveil a nightmare world of CIA drug trials, Nazi inspired eugenic work, and repressive mind control.
Synopsis
Summer, 1954.
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped patient, a murderess named Rachel Solando, as a hurricane bears down upon them.
But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems.
And neither is Teddy Daniels.
Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffes radical approach to psychiatry? An approach that may include drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing. . . .
Or is there another, more personal reason why he has come there?
As the investigation deepens, the questions only mount:
How has a barefoot woman escaped the island from a locked room?Who is leaving clues in the form of cryptic codes?
Why is there no record of a patient committed there just one year before?
What really goes on in Ward C?
Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards?
The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island.Because someone is trying to drive them insane. . . .
About the Author
Dennis Lehane is the author of ten previous novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He and his wife, Angie, currently live in California with their children.